House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”

This is the twenty-second in a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

This program continues examination of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

Eventually, the collaborationist mainstream media began an assault on Richard Sprague and the work of the committee. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post began the assault, which quickly drew blood. . . .

. . . . The only time he ever had his credentials questioned was during the six months he agreed to swerve as counsel to the HSCA. And that is simply because he was going to supervise a real investigation of the JFK case. Yet, the same thing happened to him as happened to Jim Garrison. In fact, like Garrison, Sprague was also even accused of being in bed with the Mafia. When the first press attacks began. HSCA staffer Chris Sharrett remembers thinking, ‘It’s Garrison all over again.’ Or, as Joe Rauh, who knew Sprague from Philadelphia and had a front row seat to the controversy in Washington said, ‘You know, I never thought the Kennedy case was a conspiracy until now. But if they can do that to Dick Sprague, it must have been.’ With Sprague’s resignation, the House Select Committee survived. The interim Chief Counsel was Tanenbaum with Al Lewis, a friend and colleague of Sprague’s as his deputy. . . .

In the interim, between Sprague’s resignation and the ascension of G. Robert Blakey to the Chief Counsel position, George DeMohrenschildt died of a shotgun wound to the head.

DeMohrenschildt: was part of the family that managed the Nobel Oil Fields for the Czar; was the cousin of Baron Konstantin Maydell, in charge of Abwehr operations in the United States for a time (Abwehr was German military intelligence); was a suspected Nazi spy in World War II; was an associate of George H.W. Bush; was a longtime CIA asset; was a petroleum geologist.

DeMohrenschildt implemented the Oswalds’ introduction to the White Russian milieu in Dallas. Of particular significance for our purpose is the fact that he made contact with the couple at the suggestion of J. Walton Moore, who was the primary CIA officer in the Dallas area!

The White Russians appeared to be working to separate Marina and Lee, and were involved in handling Marina after the assassination.

A long-standing CIA asset, DeMohrenschildt had worked with the agency on numerous projects in Yugoslavia, Haiti and elsewhere. Suspected of having spied on the Aransas Pass Coast Guard Station (in Texas) for the Third Reich, DeMohrenschildt was the cousin of Baron Kontantin Maydell, who oversaw Abwehr operations in the U.S. for a time. (The Abwehr was German military intelligence.)

As discussed in FTR #712, we highlighted DeMohrenschildt’s links to former CIA director George H.W. Bush, for whom CIA headquarters is named. In that same program, we covered Bush’s involvement in the JFK assassination. LIke DeMohrenschildt and many of the White Russians who associated with the Oswalds in the Dallas area, Bush had roots in the petroleum industry.

Noteworthy in the context of Oswald’s presence in Dallas, is that this alleged traitor was employed by Jaggars, Chiles and Stovall, a firm that did classified work for the military, including projects associated with the U-2 spy plane! That the “traitor” Oswald, who offered to disclose classified information about the U-2 and U.S. aviation operations to the Soviets could be employed by such a firm is unthinkable, IF we are to take the official version of Oswald at face value.

Ultimately, DeMohrenschildt handed the Oswalds–Lee and Marina–off to the “Quaker liberals” Michael and Ruth Paine.

DeMohrenschildt’s death was ruled a suicide, but the circumstances surrounding his demise are noteworthy.

At the time he died, DeMohrenschildt was networking with a Dutch journalist named Willem Oltmans, who began spreading disinformation after DeMohrenschildt’s demise. DeMohrenschildt was also networking with journalist Edward Epstein, who pressed the “Soviets did it” meme for a time and whose behavior vis a vis DeMohrenschildt is questionable.

Prior to his death, DeMohrenschildt was undergoing psychiatric treatment, apparently including electro-shock therapy, from a Dallas physician named Mendoza. DeMohrenschildt’s widow thinks the treatments may have had something to do with her husband’s death.

The physical evidence in connection with DeMohrenschildt’s death suggests the distinct possibility of foul play.

. . . . Even though a coroner’s inquest ruled his death as self-inflicted, there are some serious questions about DeMohrenschildt’s demise. First, according to the crime scene report and the autopsy, there was not any exit wound to the rear of the skull. Yet DeMohrenschildt allegedly placed a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It’s true that shotgun shells disperse more quickly than jacketed bullets. But his shot was almost within contact distance. Neither the maid nor the cook heard the shotgun blast, even though both women were right below the room that DeMohrenschildt was in at the time. The police also had problems explaining the blood spatter on the wall. When a blood spurt hits a flat surface, it creates a different pattern than if it hits a surface that is perpendicular to it. In looking at photographs of the spatter pattern, it appears that the bathroom door was closed at the time the shooting took place, because the blood pattern looked continuous. But the police said this was not the case. The bathroom door was open at the time. The testifying officer demeaned the jurors for asking this question and then jumped to a new topic. But it would appear that someone altered the crime scene afterwards. The final oddity about the scene is the position of the weapon after death. It fell trigger side up, parallel to the chair DeMohrenschildt was in, with the barrel resting at his feet and the butt of the rifle away from him and to his left. The police had a problem with this issue and so did the inquest jurors. As author Jerry Rose has noted, this strange positioning of the rifle suggests it was “placed” by someone.

Ms. Tilton was not at home at the time of DeMohrenschildt’s death. But she had left strict instructions for the maid to record her favorite TV programs. The home had an alarm system which caused a quiet bell to ring, anytime an outside door or window was opened. During the hearing, the tape of the program was played. When it was the alarm bell went off and then the gun blast was heard. . . .

Subsequently, writer Jerry Policoff felt that Oltmans was threatening him and that the Dutch journalist was a malefactor.

An initial candidate to replace Richard Sprague was former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, who had been JFK’s Secretary of Labor.

. . . . Former Justice of the Supreme Court Arthur Goldberg was one candidate who turned down the job. Al Lewis had talked Goldberg into filling the position. But Goldberg had one reservation. He wanted to know if the CIA would cooperate with him. Lewis suggested calling up Stansfield Turner, President Carter’s CIA Director. So Lewis called him and told him Goldberg wanted to talk with him. He put Goldberg on the line and the candidate asked Turner if he could guarantee the Agency would cooperate if he became Chief Counsel. A long silence ensued. It got so long and so quiet that Goldberg turned to Lewis and said, ‘I’m not sure if he’s there anymore.’ Lewis suggested that he say something. So Goldberg asked if he was still on the line and Turner said he was. Goldberg asked him for an answer to his question. Turner said, ‘I though my silence was my answer.’ . . . .

Eventually, the HSCA settled on G. Robert Blakey as Chief Counsel and Richard (Dick) Billings as a key aide. Both had been involved with tarring Jim Garrison with the Mafia brush in a 1967 Life Magazine series.

. . . . But [David] Chandler’s most serious blast against Garrison and his inquiry was a two-part article written for Life in the fall of 1967. This appeared in the September 1 and September 8 issues of the magazine. The pieces masqueraded as an expose of Mafia influence in large cities in America at the time. But the real target of the piece was not the mob, but Garrison. The idea was to depict him as a corrupt New Orleans DA who had some kind of nebulous ties to the Mafia and Carlos Marcello. There were four principal participants in the pieces: Chandler, Sandy Smith, Dick Billings, and Robert Blakey. Smith was the actual billed writer. And since Smith was a long-time asset of the FBI, it is very likely that the Bureau was the Bureau was the originating force behind the magazine running the piece. . . .

. . . . It was the work of Chandler, a friend of both Clay Shaw and Kerry Thornley, which was the basis of the completely phony concept that Garrison was somehow in bed with the Mafia and his function was to steer attention from their killing of Kennedy. . . .

Blakey:

1.–Effectively eclipsed the New Orleans leads developed by Jim Garrison.
2.–Bought into the Magic Bullet Theory.
3.–Eclipsed evidence about “Oswald’s” sniper’s nest in the Texas School Book Depository.

Most importantly, Blakey gave the intelligence services the right to veto what information would go into the committee’s report.

” . . . . When Robert Blakey took charge of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, he agreed to do something that Richard Sprague would not. In return for access to classified materials, members and employees f the committee signed agreements pledging not to disclose any information they garnered while doing their work. Then, when Blakey, Gary Cornwell, and Dick Billings edited the report and volumes, the agencies they made agreements that [the agencies] were allowed to veto what information was included in the published volumes. This is the reason that the HSCA report on Mexico City–assembled by two law students of Blakey’s from Cornell–was not part of the published volumes in 1979. For when it came time to vet the report for release, Blakey, Ed Lopez and Dan Hardway met with the CIA representatives. The Agency made so many objections, it took four hours to get through the first two paragraphs. The report is over 300 pages long. It was therefore classified until the ARRB was created. And then it had to go through several reviews. But even today, an annex to the report, ‘Was Oswald an Agent of the CIA’ has not been released. This long classified report confirms that, as Garrison wrote in 1968, the Commission version of what happened in Mexico City was deliberately covered in mist. . . .

Near the end of his investigation, Blakey was on the receiving end of some questionable behavior from CIA liaison Regis Blahut:

. . . . Toward the end, when CIA liaison Regis Blahut was caught mishandling Kennedy’s autopsy photos while they were secured in a safe, the Agency offered Blakey four ways to do an inquiry of what had happened. The main object being to see if Blahut was part of a larger operation to undermine the HSCA. One option was to do the inquiry through the D.C. police, another was through the FBI, and the third was an internal HSCA inquiry. The last was to have the CIA do it. Even though the Agency officers at this meeting strongly encouraged Blakey not to choose them to do the investigation, he still did. The reporting officer, Haviland Smith, made the only conclusion he could from this meeting He wrote that his interpretation of what Blakey wanted was the Agency ‘to go ahead with the investigation of Blahut and that he expects us to come up with a clean bill of health for the CIA.’ Which, of course, they did despite the fact that Blahut flunked three polygraph tests. When the author talked to HSCA staffer Eddie Lopez about this matter, I told him that in reading these memoranda, I was struck by how friendly Blakey was with these CIA officers. That is, what a seemingly easy rapport he had with them. I said, ‘You know, Eddie he talks to them . . . “Lopez interrupted me in mid-sentence and completed the thought for me: ‘He talks to them like he’s one of them.’ . . . .”

We note that, during the early phase of the HSCA’s investigation, George H.W. Bush was in charge of the CIA. George Joannides, who managed the DRE for CIA, was the Agency’s main liaison to the HSCA.

House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”

This is the twenty-first in a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

This program undertakes examination of the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

The HSCA coalesced after a showing of the Zapruder film on television cued a dramatic increase in people who were interested in the JFK assassination. Representative Tom Downing of Virginia was instrumental in realizing the project.

Ultimately, respected Pennsylvania prosecutor Richard Sprague became the committee’s Chief Counsel, recruiting skilled aides like the late Gaeton Fonzi and Robert Tanenbaum. Networking with, among others, Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker, Sprague, Tanenbaum, Fonzi et al quickly concluded that the Warren Commission was covering up the assassination and highlighted the ridiculous nature of CE399–the so-called “Magic Bullet,” which is the evidentiary core of the Warren Commission’s thesis.

Initially, the HSCA began doing some serious work, investigating and analyzing the New Orleans connections that Garrison investigated. In addition to the Shaw, Banister, Ferrie Oswald relationships, the role of David Phillips, aka “Maurice Bishop,” became a substantive focal point of their work.

Gaeton Fonzi’s work for the committee focused on:

1.–CIA officer Bernardo DeTorres’ professional career, including his work with Mitchell Werbell.
2.–David Phillips/”Maurice Bishop.”
3.–The Rose Cheramie foreshadowing of the assassination.
4.–Sergio Arcacha Smith’s numerous links to the assassination, including his possible work running guns with Jack Ruby and CIA contract agent Tomas Eli Davis.
5.–Freeport Sulphur, its networking with both Clay Shaw and David Ferrie and its ownership by the Eastern Elite.
6.–The role of Jock Whitney in Freeport Sulphur.
The publisher of The New York Herald Tribune, Whitney worked late into the evening of 11/22/1963, apparently on an editorial that featured the book The Assassins, which claimed that America’s assassinations were the work of “crazed individuals.” The book was later distributed to members of the Warren Commission by none other than Allen Dulles.

The program goes into the discovery made by researcher John Hunt of the handling of the Magic Bullet, CE399.

. . . . And the proof is that both the Warren Commission and the HSCA signed onto the ludicrous Single Bullet Theory. A theory that has been rendered even more risible today than it was in the sixties and seventies. For researcher John Hunt has proven with declassified documents that the so-called Magic Bullet was at the FBI lab in Washington at 7:30 p.m. on the night of the twenty-second. But how could this be if that bullet was not turned over by the Secret Service to FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd until 8:50 p.m.? In other words, lab technician Robert Frazier had booked CE399 into his reords one hour and twenty minutes before it was given to him by agent Todd. But further, Todd’s initials were said by the FBI to be on this bullet he dropped off with Frazier that night. Hunt saw the blow up photos of the entire circumference of CE 399 at the National Archives. The FBI lied on this key issue. For Todd’s initials are not on the bullet.

All one needs to know about the efficacy of the HSCA is that it never took the time to do what John Hunt did. . . .

Eventually, the collaborationist mainstream media began an assault on Richard Sprague and the work of the committee. The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post began the assault, which quickly drew blood. . . .

This is the twentieth in a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

This program deals with Oswald in Mexico City, one of the most important elements in constructing the cover-up of the assassination.

The Mexico City gambit entails “Oswald” ostensibly traveling to Mexico City to visit the Cuban and Soviet embassies, the latter involving “Oswald’s” alleged contacts with Valery Kostikov, the KGB’s agent in charge of assassinations in the Western Hemisphere. When reports of this were circulated in the American media on the weekend of JFK’s assassination, it appeared to many that the Soviet Union and/or Cuba was behind the assassination.

Ultimately, the possibility of World War III and a nuclear holocaust breaking out as a result of the assassination were used by Lyndon Baines Johnson to engineer a cover-up.

. . . . To say this deception about Oswald in Mexico worked well does not begin to do it justice. For at the first meeting of the Warren Commission, the former DA of Alameda County California, Earl Warren, came out meek as a lamb:

1.–He did not want the Commission to employ any of their own investigators.
2.–He did not want the Commission to gather evidence. Instead he wished for them to rely on reports made by other agencies like the FBI and Secret Service.
3.–He did not want their hearings to be public. He did not want to employ the power of subpoena.
4.–Incredibly, he did not even want to call any witnesses. He wanted to rely on interviews done by other agencies.
5.–He then made a very curious comment, “Meetings where witnesses would be brought in would retard rather than help our investigation.

In other words, as Johnson told [then Senator Richard] Russell, they were to ratify the FBI’s inquiry. There was to be no real investigation by anyone. The Mexico City charade, with its threat of atomic holocaust, had secured the cover up of Kennedy’s murder. . . .

Key elements of discussion and analysis on this topic include:

1.–Warren Commission counsels David Slawson and William Coleman relied on CIA and FBI liaison for their information. Specifically, they relied on counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton and and his aide Ray Rocca for their information. NB: Mr. Emory erred at one point in this interview, identifying Richard Helms a head of the CIA, he was Deputy Director of the Agency at this point in time.
2.–Slawson even considered joining the CIA at this point. We can but wonder if, in fact, he did just that.
3.–Richard Helms appointed Angleton to be the main liaison for the Agency to the Warren Commission. Recall that Angleton and Ray Rocca were in charge of the Oswald pre-assassination files.
4.–Angleton and the FBI’s William Sullivan coordinated their response concerning Oswald having ties to U.S. intelligence agencies, denying that that was, in fact, the case.
5.–A handful of CIA officers known as the SAS (not to be confused with the British commando organization with the same initials) developed an interest in Oswald weeks before the assassination.
6.–Slawson and Coleman relied on CIA station chief Winston Scott when in Mexico City.
7.–Sylvia Duran, employed at the Cuban embassy in Mexico City, reported the “Lee Harvey Oswald” with whom she met as ” . . . being short, about five foot, six inches, blond and over thirty years old. Oswald was five foot, nine inches, dark haired, and twenty-four years old. . . .” (p. 349.)
8.–Duran noted that the procedure used by the Oswald impostor to obtain a visa was suspicious: ” . . . . “They [U.S. communists, which “Oswald” allegedly was] usually followed a procedure, arranged for by the American Communist Party, which allowed them to obtain a visa in advance through the Cuban Communist Party. . . The fact that Oswald did not do this was revealing. It seemed to suggest that either Oswald was not a real communist, or that people inside the communist circles in America thought he was an agent provocateur. They therefore did not trust him. . . .” (pp. 349-350.)
9.–The phone calls made to Sylvia Duran at the Cuban embassy contain significant discrepancies: ” . . . . Duran stated firmly that after the twenty-seventh, when Oswald had failed to secure his special visa, he did not call her back. Again, someone embroidered this for the Commission. For in the Warren Report, she is quoted as saying ” . . . . she does not recall whether or not Oswald later telephoned her at the Consulate number she gave him.” This was an important discrepancy in testimony. Because, as we shall see, there was another call to the Russian consulate on Saturday the twenty-eighth [of September, 1963]. The CIA claims this call was by Duran, with Oswald also on the line. But if Duran’s recall is correct, then the CIA evidence is spurious. . . .” (p. 350.)
10.–When G. Robert Blakey and his associate Richard Billings assumed control over the HSCA, they made a significant concession: ” . . . . In return for access to classified materials, members and employees f the committee signed agreements pledging not to disclose any information they garnered while doing their work. The, when Blakey, Gary Cornwell, and Dick billings edited the report and volumes, the agencies they made agreements that [the agencies] were allowed to veto what information was included in the published volumes. . ..” (p. 350.)
11.–While “Oswald” was supposedly in Mexico City, Sylvia Odio was visited by three men, one whom was identified as “Leon Oswald,” an ex-Marine, an excellent shot, and someone who felt that JFK should be assassinated for failing to support the Bay of Pigs invasion. ” . . . . After reading the Warren Report, [HSCA’s first Chief Counsel Richard] Sprague wondered why the commission chose to discount the testimony of Silvia Odio. . . . When she first heard of Oswald’s involvement with the Kennedy assassination, she immediately recalled the visit of the three men. That afternoon she became very fearful, so much so that she fainted. She then met with her sister, ans and they had both been watching television with Oswald’s photo on the screen, they both realized he was the man who thought the Cubans should have killed Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. . . .” (pp. 350-351.)
12.–The Odio incident created problems for the Warren Commision: ” . . . . The third problem, the one that bothered Sprague, was that the dates of the visit clashed with the dates that Oswald was supposed to be going to Mexico. . . .” (p. 352.)
13.–To discredit Sylvia Odio, Warren Commission counsel Wesley Liebler impugned her sexual mores: ” . . . . Odio described what happened next to Fonzi and the Church Committee: ‘Not only that, he invited me to his room upstairs to see some pictures. I did go, I went to his room. I wanted to see how far a government investigator would go and what they were trying to do to a witness. . . . He showed me pictures, he made advances, yes, but I told him he was crazy.’ Liebler wasn’t through. To show her what kind of operation the Commission really was, he told her that they had seen her picture and joked about it at the Warren Commission. They said things like what a pretty girl you are going to see Jim. . . . For HSCA staff lawyer Bill Triplett told this author that the reason that chairman Earl Warren did not believe Sylvia Odio is that she was some kind of a ‘loose woman.’ . . .” (pp. 352-353.)
14.–The linguistic capabilities of the “Oswald” who allegedly was contacting the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City are contradictory: ” . . . . it has Oswald speaking fluent Spanish, which no one has ever said Oswald did. Further, the HSCA report says that Oswald spoke poor, broken Russian. Yet both Marina Oswald and George DeMohrenschildt said Oswald spoke Russian quite well upon his return to the United States. Further, professional translator Peter Gregory thought Oswald was fluent enough to give him a letter certifying Oswald’s ability to serve as a translator. . . .” (p. 353.)
15.–The “Oswald” photographed in Mexico City was obviously an impostor: ” . . . . The CIA had multiple still cameras set up outside the Cuban embassy in Mexico City to catch everyone coming out of and going inside in order to secure a visa to Cuba. When, at the request of the Commission, the FBI asked the CIA for a photo of Oswald entering the consulate, they got Commissin Exhibit 237. This is a picture of a husky six footer with a crew-cut. Obviously not Oswald. . . . In Owald’s combined five visits to the Cuban consulate and Soviet consulate, the battery of CIA cameras failed to get even one picture of him entering or leaving. In other words, they were zero for ten. And the camera right outside the Cuban consulate was pulse activated. . . . ” (pp. 353-354.)
16.–Both David Phillips and his assistant Anne Goodpasture were involved in multiple obfuscations of the facts: ” . . . . Anne Goodpasture was in charge of the ‘daily take’ from both target embassies. That is the photographs taken from outside and the clandestine tape recordings made from inside the compounds. This is important because she then would have been the first person to see a photo of Oswald. Therefore, she should have sent for a photo of Oswald from Langley in a timely manner while Oswald was still in Mexico City. She did not. . . .” (p. 354.)
17.–Next, we highlight more of Phillips’s obstruction of the investigation: ” . . . . Phillips said that they had no audio tapes because they ‘recycled their tapes every seven or eight days.’ The tapes were actually recycled every ten days. But they were held for a longer time if so requested. Further, if any American citizen spoke broken Russian inside the Soviet consulate, the tape would be sent to Washington. Because he would be considered of possible operational interest to the Soviets. . . . Phillips also told [HSCA counsel Robert] Tanenbaum that the reason the CIA did not have a photo of Oswald was because their camera was out that day. This appears to be another lie. First of all, Oswald went to the Soviet consulate on two different days, the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth. So all three of the cameras covering the site would have had to have been out on both days. . . .” (p. 354.)
18.–Phillips also dissembled concerning a cable sent to CIA headquarters: ” . . . . The surveillance of the Russian consulate revealed that by October 1, the CIA knew that “Oswald” was in direct contact with those who worked there, such as Valery Kostikov of the KGB. But yet, the cable alerting headquarters to this fact did not arrive until a week later, October 8, Phillips tried to explain this delay by blaming the translators. He then said he knew that this was the case since he signed off on the cable. Hardway and Lopez found out that Phillips did not sign off on the cable, since it did not deal in any way with Cuban matters. But even worse, he could not have signed off on it because he was not in Mexico City at the time. The likely reason the cable was sent out so late was to keep Oswald’s profile low while he was allegedly in Mexico City. . . .” (pp. 354-355.)
19.–Oswald’s file at CIA began to be bifurcated: ” . . . . On or about September 23, Angleton began to bifurcate Oswald’s file. the FBI reports on Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities in New Orleans went into a new operational file, separate from his 201 file. Therefore, the bizarre things Oswald was doing in New Orleans . . . .were all kept out of his 201 file. So when the late arriving cable finally did come into CIA HQ from Mexico City about Oswald in the Soviet consulate, this was kept separate from his New Orleans activities. Then two different cables were sent out on October 10. One was sent to the Bureau, the State Department, and the Navy, describing a man who doesn’t fit Oswald’s description: he is thirty-five years old, has an athletic build, and stands six feet tall. This description resembles the Mystery Man photo. . . .” (pp. 355-356.)
20.–An altogether remarkable and revealing aspect of the “Oswald” in Mexico City gambit concerns the FBI’s “FLASH” notice on Oswald: ” . . . . Oswald was not placed on the FBI’s Security Index list which was passed on to the Secret Service in advance of Kennedy’s visit to Dallas. If he had been on that list, the Secret Service would have made sure he was not on the motorcade route, since he constituted a clear risk to President Kennedy. One reason he was not on the list is because the FBI “FLASH” on Oswald, which had been in effect since his defection in 1959 was removed. This warning required any information or inquiry on the subject to e immediately forwarded to the Espionage Section of Division Five, the Domestic Intelligence unit. Incredibly, the “FLASH” was canceled on October 9, 1963. In other words, after being attached to Oswald’s file for four years, it was removed just hours after he cable from Mexico City arrived in Washington reporting Oswald’s visit to the Soviet compound and meeting with Kostikov . . . .” (p. 356.)
21.–In light of Valery Kostikov’s identity, the FBI’s behavior is more than a little interesting: ” . . . . Kostikov’s true identity was revealed. His was the KGB unit responsible for assassinations in the Western Hemisphere. After being methodically lulled to sleep . . . this information must have felt like a hard punch to the jaw. Oswald had met with the KGB representative for assassination seven weeks before Kennedy arrived in Dallas. Yet, he was allowed to be in the building behind where the President’s limousine would be driving. And no one in the FBI or Secret Service did anything for nearly two months. The diabolical trap had been sprung. Hoover had no choice. He went into CYA overdrive. . . .” (p. 357.)
22.–In response to a telephoned question from Lyndon Baines Johnson, Hoover revealed that his agents had heard the tapes of “Oswald” speaking and seen the photographs of “Oswald” visiting the Mexico City diplomatic posts, but that neither the calls, nor the picture was the real Lee Harvey Oswald. ” . . . . Hoover replied that this was all very confusing. He said that they had a tape and a photo of a man who was at the Soviet consulate using Oswald’s name. But, ‘That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man’s voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there.’ On that same day, Hoover wrote a memorandum in which he said that two FBI agents who had been questioning Oswald heard this tape and concluded that the voice on the tape was not Oswald’s. . . .” (p. 357.)
23.–In order to resolve the contradictions that the FBI had highlighted about “Oswald” in Mexico City, the lie was generated that the tapes had been destroyed before the assassination. Yet, Stanley Watson demonstrated otherwise: ” . . . . CIA officer and Deputy Station Chief Stanley Watson testified to the HSCA that at least one recording existed after the assassination. Further, the man who was first in charge of the CIA’s inquiry for the Warren Commission, John Whitten, wrote that while some tapes had been erased, some of ‘the actual tapes were also reviewed,’ and that another copy of the October 1 ‘intercept on Lee Oswald’ had been ‘discovered after the assassination. . . .” (p. 358.)
24.–In 1971, after the death of former Mexico City station chief Winston Scott, his widow was threatened with removal of her survivor benefits if she did not permit CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton access to her late husband’s safe: ” . . . . April 28, 1971 was the day after Janet Scott buried her husband Winston Scott. When she heard of Scott’s death, Anne Goodpasture told James Angleton about the contents of the former Mexico City station chief’s safe. On that day, on a mission approved by Richard Helms, James Angleton flew to Mexico City. He was in such a hurry that he forgot his passport. And if the recordings were of the same false Oswald’s voice on tape, it would endanger the cover story about those tapes being destroyed prior to the assassination. After entering the house, Angleton vaguely threatened Janet’s widow’s benefits. He then had scott’s safe emptied. The contents were shipped by plane to Langley, Virginia. The man most responsible for creating first, the Oswald legend, then the design of the doomsday scenario to the plot had now disposed of a last obstruction to his handiwork. . . .” (p. 361.)

Guy Banister employee Tommy Baumler: ” . . . . whatever happens, the Shaw case will end without punishment for him [Shaw], because federal power will see to that.”

This is the nineteenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

In the context of the then CIA director Richard Helms’ memo that Garrison’s should be neutralized before, during and after the Clay Shaw trial, we highlight the media attacks against Garrison that continued after the trial.

The media hit pieces continued during Garrison’s attempt at trying Clay Shaw for perjury. Look magazine did a hit piece on Garrison featuring many of the “Usual Suspects,” including William Gurvich, one of the infiltrators into Jim Garrison’s investigative trial who then collaborated with Shaw’s defense team.

Officially the piece was written by Warren Rogers, whose institutional affiliations bear relating:

. . . . Rogers, like Phelan and Sandy Smith, was a reliable asset of the FBI. That is, he could be contacted to do favors for them when called upon. The public did not know this until the 1979 posthumous publication of William Sullivan’s book about the FBI called The Bureau. Sullivan had beena top echelon officer in the FBI for many years. In his book there is a chapter entitled “Flacking for the Bureau.” Listed as one of the reporters who would often write articles with information fed to them by the FBI was Warren Rogers. . . .

Hunter Leake–in charge of CIA operations in New Orleans–kept the teletype machine they had installed during Shaw’s criminal trial in place until after the proposed perjury trial.

An altogether remarkable change of venue occurred, after Shaw’s lawyers had received copies of Garrison’s investigative documents for Shaw’s perjury trial!

. . . . After having been in receipt of Garrison’s briefing papers for the perjury trial, Shaw’s attorneys finally tried for a temporary restraining order to stop Garrison’s case from proceeding. This was initially denied. But then, on January 18, 1971, the day the state trial was to begin, a motion for emergency relief was granted. This was unusual because the federal judiciary does not often intervene in state prosecutions. But Shaw’s lawyers wrote that Shaw would suffer “grave and irreparable injury” as the result of the state perjury case which had been brought in “bad faith” and “in furtherance of Garrison’s scheme of harassment and intimidation.” A hearing on whether or not to grant the preliminary injunction was set for January 25, 1971, just one week after the state trial was to begin. In other words, Shaw’s lawyers needed almost no preparation time for the new venue and the new hearing, which they likely had been preparing for in advance, since they had an intimation that they would be successful in switching the venue.

They were counting on Herbert Christenberry. Christenberry was the federal judge who presided over this hearing. To understand what happened thee, one must understand who Christenberry was. . . .

In 1935, Louisiana governor Huey Long was assassinated, and Herbert Christenberry covered for the true conspirators, who were a group of operators from Standard Oil, who were plotting to take over the reigns of the Louisiana state government.

Christenberry and his wife Caroline were friends and supporters of Clay Shaw!

. . . . The other piece of information that helps elucidate what Christenberry did was found in the National Archives as part of Shaw’s personal papers. It is a letter from Christenberry’s wife Caroline to Shaw which was sent a week after his acquittal. It begins like this: “Our most sincere congratulations! We shared your anxieties over the past two outrageous years.” The reader should note the wife’s sentiments. Te note goes on with: “Should your case have eventually found its way to Federal Court and been allotted to my husband you most certainly would have had a fair trial. He felt we should not risk the possible of being considered ‘prejudiced’ in advance. This is our reason for not openly expressing these sentiments earlier.’ As if Shaw did not have a fair trial the first time around? The reader should note the quotes around the word prejudiced. That usage and the sentence’s meaning clearly denotes that Christenberry was ferociously biased for Shaw and against Garrison. But he did not want anyone to know that. . . . the fact that this was sent in 1969 clearly influenced his lawyers’ strategy for the perjury case. . . . .

. . . . The three day hearing might have been scripted by Hugh Aynesworth. . . . For example, William Gurvich was allowed to testify as to the fraudulence of Garrison’s investigation. . . . Garrison, not Shaw, was actually placed on the witness stand and asked to explain why he ever called in Shaw for questioning in the first place. In other words, at the Wegmanns’ request, Christenberry was asking the DA to give away his planned upcoming case against the defendant. . . .

After the foregone conclusion of the Shaw perjury trial, the Richard Helms/CIA directive to neutralize Garrison after the Clay Shaw trial continued to be manifested. Garrison was framed for allegedly taking kickbacks from an illegal payoff scheme from organized-crime linked pinball machine operators. Key points about this gambit:

1.–The recruiting by the government of Pershing Gervais to concoct phony “evidence” against Garrison.
2.–Garrison’s cross-examination of the pinball operators and the determination that the evidence against him was nonexistent. None of the operators testified to paying Garrrison and/or his assistants any money or even knowing him.
3.–Gervais was shipped to Canada and given a job at General Motors, as well as an annual stipend from the Justice Department!
4.–The tapes Gervais had allegedly made of Garrison while the former was wearing a wire were determined to be phony.
5.–The sums Gervais claimed to have moved from Garrison were not even consistent within the various accounts that he gave.
6.–Pershing eventually “rolled over” on the government, admitting that he was recruited in a criminal enterprise by the government to frame Garrison.

Perhaps the most effective, long-lasting element in the post-Shaw trial destruction of Jim Garrison was the election of Justice Department official Harry Connick to succeed Garrison as DA.

Key points of discussion and analysis about Connick:

1.–He was seemingly omnipresent in Clay Shaw’s criminal trial, operating to obstruct Garrison and aid Clay Shaw and the Federal Government for which he worked.
2.–Station WDSU–very close to Clay Shaw and the vehicle for both the Walter Sheridan disinformation hit piece on Jim Garrison and the Ed Butler/Carlos Bringuier interview of the “Communist” Oswald–was active on behalf of Connick.
3.–The Gurvich brothers, who infiltrated Garrison’s investigation and networked with Clay Shaw’s defense team (with William appearing as a witness in the hearing on Shaw’s perjury trial), were active on behalf of Harry Connick.
4.–Clay Shaw himself, as well as DRE operative Carlos Bringuier contributed to Connick’s election campaign.
5.–In his second campaign to replace Garrison, Connick was successful.
6.–After becoming New Orleans DA, he burned many of Garrison’s files.

Eventually, the money Garrison supposedly garnered from the phony pinball operator kickback scheme led to an IRS charge of income tax evasion. Garrison was acquitted.

Clay Shaw filed a nuisance lawsuit against Garrison for slander/defamation, which was terminated by Clay Shaw’s death, despite the Wegmanns’ attempts at perpetuating it even after their client was deceased.

James Phelan’s protege James Kirkwood continued the media assault on Garrison with the publication of his book American Grotesque, which misrepresented the Garrison investigation.

Guy Banister employee Tommy Baumler: ” . . . . whatever happens, the Shaw case will end without punishment for him [Shaw], because federal power will see to that.”

This is the eighteenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

This interview continues with the analysis of Clay Shaw’s trial.

Exemplifying the power that was marshaled on behalf of Clay Shaw was the treatment accorded FBI agent Regis Kennedy.

Not only did the Department of Justice intercede ahead of time to limit Kennedy’s testimony, but Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell “severely curtailed” his testimony “mid-trial.”

. . . . The only witness that Garrison was able to produce to inquire into the official investigation of the assassination in New Orleans was FBI agent Regis Kennedy. And even then, by prior arrangement with the Justice Department, Kennedy would only testify about a certain area of his inquiry, namely his interview with Dean Andrews and his consequent search for Clay Bertrand. This limitation hurt the DA since Kennedy was a relevant witness to other aspects of the case. For instance, along with several others, he had been a member of the Friends of Democratic Cuba group set up by Guy Banister and William Dalzell. Further, there were witnesses who put Kennedy in Banister’s office. Therefore, what Kennedy could have told the court about Banister, Ferrie, their association with the Cubans–especially Sergio Artcacha Smith–and Oswald, was very likely considerable. But he was not allowed to testify about any of those important matters. Consequently, when Alcock asked him if he was involved with the investigation into President Kennedy’s death prior to his interview with Andrews, Kennedy said he was not sure if he could answer that question. The discussion then went inside the judge’s chambers. Connick then called Washington. After this, the jury was called back inside. Alcock then asked Kennedy if, prior to his interview with Andrews, had he been engaged in the inquiry into President Kennedy’s assassination. Kennedy replied in the affirmative. Alcock then was allowed to ask the follow-op question, which related to the first: Was Kennedy seeking Clay Bertrand in connection with his overall investigation into the assassination. Kennedy said that he was.

There was a code to all this that Alcock could not have known about. But it was part of the reason that Attorney General John Mitchell severely curtailed Regis Kennedy’s testimony in mid-trial. . . .

A major element in the testimony during Clay Shaw’s trial was the testimony of autopsy surgeon Army Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Finck. The autopsy was being controlled by one of the high-ranking military officers present at the procedure.

. . . . Finck replied that he was not running the autopsy, it was Commander James Humes. When Oser asked if Humes was actually in charge, Finck made a disclosure which literally changed the face of the autopsy evidence forever. And it should have rocked the news media if [media hatchet man James] Phelan had not been controlling it. Finck replied that Humes actually stopped and asked, “Who is in charge here?” Finck then said he heard an Army General say, “I am.” Finck then added, “You must understand that in those circumstances, there were law enforcement officials, military people with various ranks, and you have to coordinate the operations according to directions”. . . .

Then, Jim notes that Alvin Oser had to ask Finck eight times as to why Finck did not dissect the track of the neck wound. Finck’s response–that he was ordered not to do so by one of the high-ranking officers present, is proof of a conspiracy.

. . . . [Alvin] Oser then moved on to another key issue that exposed the pathologists as pawns. A very important point about the autopsy is its failure to convincingly prove directionality. That is, from which direction did the bullets enter the body? There have always been serious queries about whether the wound in Kennedy’s throat was an entrance or exit wound. If that wound was one of entrance, then Kennedy was shot at least once from the front. That shot could not have been from Oswald, therefore the murder was a conspiracy. What makes this possibility very real is that Malcolm Perry said during a televised press conference on November 22 that the throat wound was one of entrance. He repeated this three times that day. Since he did the tracheotomy right over that wound, he should certainly know. The best way to have proven this point once and for all was to have dissected the wound track. Amazingly, this was not done. When Oser tried to find out why it was not done, Finck used every evasion he could to avoid answering the question. Going over the transcript of this exchange is a bit startling. The reader will find that Oser had to pose the question eight separate times. It got so bad that Oser even had to request that the judge direct the witness to answer the question. Finck finally answered with, “As I recall I was told not to, but I don’t remember by whom.” Again, someone was controlling the pathology team in a way that prevented them from doing a full and correct autopsy. . . . Further, the fact that the doctors were ordered not to track the wound indicated the military brass may have been trying to cover this point up. . . .

One of Garrison’s strongest weapons in his counterattack against the forces running interference on behalf of Shaw and others involved in the assassination was the Zapruder film, which clearly shows Kennedy’s body being thrown back and to the left, indicating a shot from the front.

Media hatchet man James Phelan who, like Walter Sheridan and Hugh Aynesworth worked with the intelligence services, became a defense witness for Clay Shaw and also played what was, in effect, a supervisory/PR role in presiding over a consortium of journalists covering the Shaw trial.

. . . . That journalistic duo, Phelan and Ayneswoth, were both on the scene: Phelan as a witness for the defense and Aynesworth to help Shaw’s attorneys. An odd thing about this was that neither man had any ostensible writing assignment at the time. But it turned out that Phelan had a very special function for his backers. Most reporters in town to cover the proceedings rented a hotel room, but not Phelan. Phelan rented a house. Why would he do such a thing if he was not there to write a story? because his was a much bigger assignment. His job was to put the spin on each day’s testimony for the residing press corps, thereby controlling the entire national media reportage on the Shaw trial. How did he do such a thing? He would invite all the reporters over to his rented house at the end of each day. He would then serve them refreshments and snacks. He then would spell out the next day’s story on a chalkboard. This is how some of the most interesting and important testimony presented during the proceedings got covered up by the media. On the day the Zapruder film was shown, Phelan had his work cut out for him. For the repeated showing of the film was shown, Phelan had his work cut out for him. For the repeated showing of the film—depicting Kennedy’s body being violently knocked back—really shook up the press. It appeared Garrison was right, it was a conspiracy. But when they arrived at Phelan’s rented house, the reporter pulled a proverbial rabbit out of his hat. He took out his chalkboard, raised up his piece of chalk, and he began to outline the dynamics of the so-called “jet-effect” explanation for the action of the film. That is, if Oswald was firing from behind Kennedy, why does Kennedy’s body recoil with tremendous force to the rear of the car? What Phelan and the jet effect proffer is that somehow, the spurting of blood and brains served as a jet that drove Kennedy’s head backward with overpowering force. This is how determined Phelan was to keep a lid on what came out of the trial. . . .

In our previous program, we highlighted the attempt on booking officer Aloysius Habighorst’s life on the eve of his testimony in the Clay Shaw trial. When he testified, Judge Haggerty refused to allow his testimony into evidence.

. . . . When Shaw was first arrested in March of 1967, Habighorst had handled the booking. Before having him sign the fingerprint card, the officer had routinely asked if the defendant had ever used an alias. Apparently unsettled by his arrest, Shaw had replied “Clay Bertrand.” Habighorst typed this on the card and Shaw signed it. Alcock now wanted to admit both the card and the officer’s testimony as evidence into the trial. This seemed powerful, damning evidence because it came right out of Shaw’s mouth and hand. . . .The prosecution’s protestations fell on deaf ears. Judge Haggerty would not allow the evidence. . . .

Alcock leaped out of his chair. His face red and his voice cracked with emotion. “Your Honor. Are you ruling on the credibility of officer Habighorst?” . . . .

. . . . “The whole world can hear that I do not believe Officer Habighorst. . . . .”

The program concludes with discussion of Harry Connick’s destruction of Garrison’s files and of the government’s efforts to discredit Garison. This will be taken up at greater length in our next program.

Guy Banister employee Tommy Baumler: ” . . . . whatever happens, the Shaw case will end without punishment for him [Shaw], because federal power will see to that.”

This is the seventeenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

In this program, we proceed into New Orleans’ DA Jim Garrison’s actual trial of Clay Shaw.

Before going into the trial, per se, we highlight the “turning” of The New Orleans States-Item. This “turning” features one of the principal infiltrators into Garrison’s office, William Gurvich.

. . . . From this interview [with Tommy Baumler], what appears to have happened is that the CIA sent someone into New Orleans to impact public opinion about Garrison. This may have been occasioned by a letter forwarded to CIA HQ to Lloyd Ray of the local New Orleans office. . . . William Gurvich, now working with Shaw’s lawyers, visited the offices of The New Orleans States-Item. Ross Yockey and Hoke May had been seriously investigating the Shaw case. And they had been doing that in a fair and judicious manner. They had uncovered some interesting facts about how Gordon Novel’s lawyers were being paid. After Gurvich’s visit, the States-Item pulled Yockey and May from the Garrison beat. When this author interviewed Yockey in 1995, he said that after this, he was then assigned to covering high school football games. With the States-Item now neutralized, the coverage in New Orleans now became imbalanced. . . .

Jim titled the chapter dedicated to the trial “Anti-Climax.” It was indeed an anti-climax after Garrison was subjected to the irresistible engine of the synthesis of: the intelligence community, their lone-wolf operators infiltrating his office, those infiltrators’ networking with the intelligence community’s media hatchet men dedicated to smearing Garrison publicly, Clay Shaw’s defense team and the Justice Department.

Garrison’s investigation was subjected to an onslaught, including outright, state-sponsored terror directed at witnesses.

A synoptic overview of the witnesses and their significance:

1.–Richard Case Nagell–A U.S. intelligence operative infiltrated into Soviet intelligence, and then assigned by KGB to assassinate Oswald, whom they knew was to be a patsy in an assassination plot against JFK for which they would be blamed.
2.–Reverend Clyde Johnson–A right-wing activist who was witness to Clay Shaw and a “Jack Rubion” networking together against JFK.
3.–Aloysius Habighorst–A good New Orleans cop who was the booking officer for Clay Shaw, when Shaw volunteered that he used the alias “Clay Bertrand.”
4.–Edwin McGehee–One of the witnesses connecting Clay Shaw to Oswald and David Ferrie in Clinton, Louisiana.
5.–Reeves Morgan–Another of the witnesses connecting Clay Shaw to Oswald and David Ferrie in Clinton, Louisiana.

. . . . Before and during the trial, Garrison’s witnesses were being surveilled, harassed, and physically attacked. For instance, Richard Case Nagell had a grenade thrown at him from a speeding car in New York. Nagell brought the remains of the grenade to Garrison and told him he did not think it wise for him to testify at Shaw’s trial. Even though Garrison had spirited Clyde Johnson out of town and very few people knew where he was, the FBI’s total surveillance eventually paid off. He was brutally beaten on the eve of the trial and hospitalized. Aloysius Habighorst, the man who booked Shaw and heard him say his alias was Bertrand, was rammed by a truck the day before he testified. After he testified, Edwin McGehee found a prowler on his front lawn. he called the marshal, and the man was arrested. At the station, the man asked to make one phone call. The call he made was to the International Trade Mart. After he testified, Reeves Morgan had the windows shot out of his truck. What makes all this violent intimidation more startling is what Robert Tanenbaum stated to the author in an interview for Probe Magazine. He said that he had seen a set of documents that originated in the office of Richard Helms. They revealed that the CIA was monitoring and harassing Garrison’s witnesses. . . .

The violent harassment of the witnesses may be viewed against the backdrop of Tom Bethell and Sal Panzeca.

. . . . Tom Bethell had been one of the DA’s key investigators and researchers . . . . Since Garrison had designated him as his chief archivist, he had access to and control of both Garrison’s files and his most recent witness list. . . . Secretly, he met with Sal Panzeca, one of Shaw’s attorneys, and gave him a witness list he had prepared, with summaries of each witness’s expected testimony for the prosecution. . . .

Exemplifying the effective neutralizing of witnesses is the drumbeat of discreditation and intimidation of Perry Russo, a witness to Shaw and Ferrie discussing plans to assassinate JFK. By the time of Clay Shaw’s trial, Russo relented and assented to the canard that the Shaw/Ferrie assassination planning was just a “bull session.”

This is the sixteenth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

The program opens with continuation of discussion of an unfortunate piece from The Huffington Post about Clay Shaw. In addition to parroting canards about Garrison’s case being baseless, Clay Shaw being a “Wilsonian/FDR liberal” and Garrison’s nonexistent stance that the JFK assassination was a “homosexual thrill killing” by Clay Shaw & company, the HP piece mentioned an appearance by Jim Garrison on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”

The actual story of Garrison’s appearance on Carson is important and interesting. When the brilliant comedian Mort Sahl was on Carson’s show, the subject of the Garrison investigation came up. Sahl asked the audience if they would like to have Garrison come on the show, and they responded with overwhelming enthusiasm.

Eventually, Garrison did appear on the show and Carson engaged in an openly confrontational discussion. Carson was so outraged that he told Mort Sahl that he would never appear on the program again. Mort did not appear on the “Tonight” show until Jay Leno succeeded Carson as the host.

In this regard, it is worth noting that NBC–the network that aired Walter Sheridan’s hit piece on Garrison–has profound connections to the intelligence community, as discussed in FTR #1045.

Jim also relates that, when in Los Angeles, Robert Kennedy was querying China Lee–Mort’s wife at the time–about what Garrison was doing in New Orleans. As we have seen in past programs–including FTR #’s 809, 892, 1005–Robert Kennedy was waiting until he got elected President before opening an investigation into his brother’s murder. Of course, he, too was killed before he could become President.

The program then turns to James Kirkwood, another of the designated media hatchet men who pilloried Garrison. Networked with James Phelan, he helped mint the canard that Garrison prosecuted Shaw in the context of what the DA supposedly saw as a “homosexual thrill killing.” Unfortunately, this nonsense has endured, as a Huffington Post article makes clear.

. . . . But Chandler’s most serious blast against Garrison and his inquiry was a two-part article written for Life in the fall of 1967. This appeared in the September 1 and September 8 issues of the magazine. The pieces masqueraded as an expose of Mafia influence in large cities in America at the time. But the real target of the piece was not the mob, but Garrison. The idea was to depict him as a corrupt New Orleans DA who had some kind of nebulous ties to the Mafia and Carlos Marcello. There were four principal participants in the pieces: Chandler, Sandy Smith, Dick Billings, and Robert Blakey. Smith was the actual billed writer. And since Smith was a long-time asset of the FBI, it is very likely that the Bureau was the Bureau was the originating force behind the magazine running the piece. . . .

. . . . It was the work of Chandler, a friend of both Clay Shaw and Kerry Thornley, which was the basis of the completely phony concept that Garrison was somehow in bed with the Mafia and his function was to steer attention from their killing of Kennedy. . . .

The subject then turns to Clay Shaw’s defense team. It should never be forgotten that Shaw’s attorneys networked with: the infiltrators into Garrison’s office, the CIA and the media hatchet men who helped destroy Garrison’s public image.

We return briefly to Guy Johnson, initially a member of Shaw’s defense team. In this context, it is worth remembering what Banister investigator Tommy Baumler said:

. . . . In the spring of 1968, Harold Weisberg interviewed Tommy Baumler. Baumler had formerly worked for Guy Banister as part of his corps of student infiltrators in the New Orleans area. Because of that experience, Baumler knew a lot about Banister’s operation. For instance, that Banister’s files were coded, and that Banister had blackmail material on the subjects he kept files on. He also knew the intelligence network in New Orleans was constructed through Banister, Clay Shaw, and Guy Johnson; how close Shaw and Banister were; and that “Oswald worked for Banister.” In Weisberg’s interview with Tommy, he would occasionally ask to go off the record by telling him to turn the tape recorder off. Clearly, there were things going on in New Orleans that Baumler considered too hot to be attributed to him.

At this time, April of 1968, Weisberg considered Baumler to be an “unabashed fascist.” He explained this further by saying that Baumler was ‘aware of the meaning of his beliefs and considers what he describes as his beliefs as proper.” He then explained to Weisberg the following, “that whatever happens, the Shaw case will end without punishment for him [Shaw], because federal power will see to that.” He further said that this would also happen to anyone else charged by Garrison. . . .

In addition to Johnson, Irv Dymond, another Shaw attorney, networked with the intelligence community, Walter Sheridan and the spook infiltrators into Garrion’s office. In FTR #1045, we noted that Fred Leemans claimed he was coerced, in part, directly by Irv Dymond in Dymond’s law office. Dymond worked directly with Hunter Leake of the CIA’s New Orleans office.

. . . . Tom Bethell had been one of the DA’s key investigators and researchers . . . . Since Garrison had designated him as his chief archivist, he had access to and control of both Garrison’s files and his most recent witness list. . . . Secretly, he met with Sal Panzeca, one of Shaw’s attorneys, and gave him a witness list he had prepared, with summaries of each witness’s expected testimony for the prosecution. . . .

The program concludes with the obstructive efforts of then Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Clark tried to dismiss Clay Shaw’s involvement inthe assassination by claiming that the FBI had cleared him back in 1963.

. . . . One point man for the Johnson Administration in damaging Garrison’s case was Ramsey Clark. In March of 1867, right after his confirmation as Attorney General by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Clark made an extraordinary intervention into the case: he told a group of reporters Garrison’s case was baseless. The FBI, he said, had already investigated Shaw in 1963 and found no connection between him and the events in Dallas. . . .

Clark also assisted with the quashing of subpoenas that Garrison served.

. . . . At around this time, Garrison issued subpoenas for both Richard Helms and any photographs of Oswald in Mexico City that the CIA held. . . . [CIA General Counsel Lawrence] Houston then wrote a letter to New Orleans judge Bernard Bagert who had signed the subpoena. He denied there were photos of Oswald in Mexico City. This reply was run by Attorney General Ramsey Clark and White House adviser Harry MacPherson. . . .

. . . . After the Attorney General had bungled his first attempt to discredit Garrison’s case, he secretly tried another method. Garrison had been trying to secure the original JFK autopsy photos and X-rays to exhibit at the trial. They would form an important part of his case, since, to prove a conspiracy, he had to present evidence against the Warren Report, which maintained there was no conspiracy and that Oswald had acted alone. In 1968, Clark convened a panel of experts–which did not include any of the doctors who had performed the original examinations–to review the autopsy photos and X-rays. In early 1969, just a few days before he left office and on the eve of the trial, Clark announced that this panel had endorsed the findings of the Warren Report. The panel released its findings, but none of the original evidence on which it was based. This was clearly meant to influence public opinion before Shaw’s trial began. . . .

House Select Committee on Assassinations Assistant Counsel Jonathan Blackmer: “. . . . ‘We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.’ . . . .”

This is the twelfth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

In this program, we continue with analysis of Clay Shaw’s intelligence connection, beginning with review of his work for the Domestic Operations Division.

A fascinating intelligence involvement of Shaw’s is his work with Permindex.

. . . . The next step in the CIA ladder after his high-level overseas informant service was his work with the strange company called Permindex. When the announcement for Permindex was first made in Switzerland in late 1956, its principal backing was to come from a local banker named Hans Seligman. But as more investigation by the local papers was done, it became clear that the real backer was J. Henry Schroder Corporation. This information was quite revealing. Schroder’s had been closely associated with Allen Dulles and the CIA for years. Allen Dulles’s connections to the Schroder banking family went back to the thirties when his law firm, Sullivan and Cromwell, first began representing them through him. Later, Dulles was the bank’s General Counsel. In fact, when Dulles became CIA director, Schroder’s was a repository for a fifty million dollar contingency fund that Dulles personally controlled. Schroder’s was a welcome conduit because the bank benefited from previous CIA overthrows in Guatemala and Iran. Another reason that there began to be a furor over Permindex in Switzerland was the fact that the bank’s founder, Baron Kurt von Schroder, was associated with the Third Reich, specifically Heinrich Himmler. The project now became stalled in Switzerland. It now moved to Rome. In a September 1069 interview Shaw did for Penthouse Magazine, he told James Phelan that he only grew interested in the project when it moved to Italy. Which was in October 1958. Yet a State Department cable dated April 9 of that year says that Shaw showed great interest in Permindex from the outset.

One can see why. The board of directors as made up of bankers who had been tied up with fascist governments, people who worked the Jewish refugee racket during World War II, a former member of Mussolini’s cabinet, and the son-in-law of Hjalmar Schacht, the economic wizard behind the Third Reich, who was a friend of Shaw’s. These people would all appeal to the conservative Shaw. There were at least four international newspapers that exposed the bizarre activities of Permindex when it was in Rome. One problem was the mysterious source of funding: no one knew where it was coming from. Another was that its activities reportedly included assassination attempts on French Premier Charles De Gaulle. Which would make sense since the founding member of Permindex, Ferenc Nagy, was a close friend of Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle was a leader of the OAS, a group of former French officers who broke with De Gaulle over his Algerian policy. They later made several attempts on De Gaulle’s life, which the CIA was privy to. Again, this mysterious source of funding, plus the rightwing, neo-Fascist directors created another wave of controversy. One newspaper wrote that the organization may have been “a creature of the CIA . . . set up as a cove for the transfer of CIA . . . funds in Italy for legal political-espionage activities.” The Schroder connection would certainly suggest that. . . .

His involvement with Permindex places him in the transnational corporate milieu that spawned fascism and Nazism. Key observations about Permindex and Shaw’s participation in it:

1.–Shaw was part of the deep political orbit of the Dulles brothers and Sullivan & Cromwell.
2.–The Permindex operational link to the Schroder Bank places it in the same milieu as the Himmler Kreis, the industrialists and financiers who financed the workings of the SS through an account in the Schroder Bank.
3.–Shaw was a friend of Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, who became the finance minister of the Third Reich and was very close to the Dulles brothers.
4.–Permindex was apparently involved with the OAS efforts to assassinate De Gaulle. This places Shaw in a network including: Banister investigator Maurice Brooks Gatlin, who boasted of having transferred money to the OAS from the CIA; Rene Souetre–an OAS operative who was expelled from Dallas/Ft. Worth the day of the assassination of JFK.
5.–As discussed in FTR #’s 1031 and 1032, JFK was an early critic of the French policy in Algeria, criticizing it on the floor of the Senate in 1957.

The conclusion of the broadcast focuses largely on the CIA’s intense interest in the Garrison investigation. This interest was manifested through an agency conclave informally named “The Garrison Group.”

. . . . Helms wanted the group to “consider the possible implications for the Agency” of what Garrison was doing in “New Orleans before, during, and after the trial of Clay Shaw. It is crucial to keep in mind the phrase: before, during, and after. As we will see, the effective administrator Helms was thinking not just of some short term fix, but of formulating a strategy for the long haul. According to the very sketchy memo about this meeting, [CIA General Counsel Lawrence] Houston discussed his dealings with the Justice Department and the desire of Shaw’s defense to meet with the CIA directly. [Ray] Rocca then said something quite ominous. He said that he felt “that Garrison would indeed obtain a conviction of Shaw for conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy.” This must have had some impact on the meeting. Since everyone must have known that Rocca had developed, by bar, the largest database on Garrison’s inquiry at CIA. . . .

We note that House Select Committee on Assassinations assistant counsel Jonathan Blackmer wrote the following:

. . . . “We have reason to believe Shaw was heavily involved in the Anti-Castro efforts in New Orleans in the 1960s and [was] possibly one of the high level planners or ‘cut out’ to the planners of the assassination.” . . . .

The program concludes with analysis of Clay Shaw’s close relationship to the Stern family of WDSU. In addition to carrying staged interviews between Oswald and Carlos Bringuier, the broadcast outlet pilloried Jim Garrison and his trial of Clay Shaw.

This is the eleventh of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing.

In this broadcast, we explore the association of David Ferrie and Clay Shaw in the context of the planning of assassination plots against JFK, as well as Shaw’s involvement with the intelligence community.

David Ferrie had a desk in the office of C. Wray Gill, a lawyer for Carlos Marcello. When another of Gill’s clients–a woman named Clara Gay–was in the office, she witnessed another Ferrie assassination schematic on November 26, 1963:

. . . . Clara looked over at Ferrie’s desk and she saw what looked like a diagram of Dealey Plaza: it was a drawing of a car from the perspective of an angle from above, the car was surrounded by high buildings, reminiscent of Dealey Plaza. After the secretary threw it out, Clara retrieved it. She said it should be given to the FBI or Secret Service. The secretary took it back and a pulling contest ensued. The secretary eventually won, but not before Clara saw the words “Elm Street” on the diagram. She later reconstructed this experience for Garrison. She said she came forward because she considered herself a good citizen, and Ferrie must have been something evil . . . .

After discussion of the Ferrie Dealey Plaza assassination schematic, the discussion turns to a conversation witnessed by Perry Russo, one of Garrison’s most important witnesses.

Key points of information about what Russo witnessed:

1.–Present at the meeting where the discussion took place were: Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, Lee Harvey Oswald and several Cubans.
2.–Shaw was using one of his most common aliases–“Clay Bertrand.”
3.–Ferrie became increasingly agitated and highlighted “triangulation of crossfire” as necessary to assure a kill shot on Kennedy.
4.–Ferrie and Shaw discussed the necessity of being somewhere else, to give themselves “cover.” This led Russo to conclude that the plans were concrete not theoretical.
5.–Ferrie said he would be in Hammond, LA., on the campus of Southeastern Louisiana. He was, in fact, there on the day of the assassination.
6.–Shaw said that he would be on the West Coast. He was, in fact, at the San Francisco Trade Mart, where he was to give a talk. When news of of the assassination reached Shaw and his host, Shaw seemed remarkably detached. When asked if he thought the talk should go forward in light of the news, Shaw said yes. This struck those around him at that time as curious.

The issue of Shaw’s aliases is an important one. The day after the assassination of JFK, New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews got a call from “Clay Bertrand,” requesting that he represent Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. Andrews had previously encountered Shaw using the same alias when seeking legal representation for some gay Latinos.

Key aspects of Andrews’ contact with Shaw/Bertrand:

1.–Andrews feared for his life if this came to light. He claimed to have been told, after calling Washington D.C., that he might get a bullet in the head if he talked.
2.–After Andrews changed his testimony, Garrison charged him with perjury, eventually gaining a conviction.
3.–Andrews’ statements about Shaw/Bertrand were bolstered by someone at the VIP lounge at the Eastern Airlines terminal at New Orleans airport, who knew Shaw to sign in under that alias.
4.–Numerous people in bars and bistros–particularly in the French Quarter–knew that Shaw used that alias. Because of Garrison’s crackdown on organized crime-related operations in New Orleans, his potential informants remained silent.

When being booked, Shaw actually stated that he used the alias “Clay Bertrand.”

Shaw was booked by a New Orleans police officer named Aloysius Habighorst–who had an excellent record. When being booked, Shaw stated that he used the alias “Clay Shaw.” Before testifying at Shaw’s trial, Habighorst’s car was rammed by a yellow truck, and he was injured.

The concluding portion of the broadcast deals with Clay Shaw’s intelligence connections. Key points of information in that regard:

1.–Shaw’s intelligence connections date to World War II, when he worked as a aide-de-camp to General Charles Thrasher. This placed him in the Special Operations Section, a branch of military intelligence and one which was involved with recruiting some of the Paperclip personnel to work for the U.S.
2.–After the war, he became involved with International House, a Rockefeller-linked operation deeply involved with the transnational corporate community.
3.–His work for the International Trade Mart followed logically on the heels of his work for International House.
4.–Shaw also worked with the Mississippi Shipping Company, which did a lot of work with the CIA.
5.–His “Y” file indicated that Shaw’s work for CIA involved conferring with the agency before traveling to Latin America, not after he returned as was the case for most informants.
6.–At least one of Shaw’s files with the CIA was destroyed.

One of the most important elements of Shaw’s intelligence career was uncovered by researcher Peter Vea, whose disclosures were supplemented by some interesting commentary by Victor Marchetti.

. . . . Peter Vea discovered a very important document while at the National Archives in 1994. Attached to a listing of Shaw’s numerous contacts with the Domestic Contact service, a listing was attached which stated that Shaw had a covert security approval in the Project QKENCHANT. This was in 1967 and the present tense was used, meaning that Shaw was an active covert operator for the CIA while Garrison was investigating him. When William Davy took this document to former CIA officer Victor Marchetti, an interesting conversation ensued. As Marchetti looked at the document, he said, “That’s interesting . . . . He was . . . He was doing something there.” He then said that Shaw would not need a covert security clearance for domestic contacts service. He then added, “This was something else. This would imply that he was doing some kind of work for the Clandestine Services.” When Davy asked what branch of Clandestine Services would that be, Marchetti replied, “The DOD (Domestic Operations Division). It was one of the most secret divisions within the Clandestine Services. This was Tracey Barnes’s old outfit. They were getting into things . . . Uh . . . exactly what, I don’t know. But they were getting into some pretty risky areas. And this is what E. Howard Hunt was working for at the time.” And in fact, Howard Hunt did have such a covert clearance issued to him in 1970 while he was working at the White House. . . .

The eighth of a planned long series of interviews with Jim DiEugenio about his triumphal analysis of President Kennedy’s assassination and New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s heroic investigation of the killing, this program continues analysis of the development of the legend (intelligence cover) of Lee Harvey Oswald.

(Listeners can order Destiny Betrayed and Jim’s other books, as well as supplementing those volumes with articles about this country’s political assassinations at his website Kennedys and King. Jim is also a regular guest and expert commentator on Black Op Radio.)

The discussion begins with review of the deep state intelligence connections of Ruth and Michael Paine, who took over the handling of the Oswalds from George De Mohrenschildt:

1. Michael Paine was a Cabot and drew from trust funds bequeathed by both the Cabot and Forbes families, both members of the “Boston Brahmins.” His mother was Ruth Forbes Young.
2. Michael’s cousin Thomas Cabot was a director United Fruit.
3. Thomas’s brother John was–like Thomas–a State Department veteran, who was exchanging information with Guy Banister employee Maurice Brooks Gatlin about the impending CIA overthrow of Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, who was pursuing policies detrimental to United Fruit’s feudal monopoly in that unfortunate nation.
4. During the early sixties, Thomas was president of the Gibraltar Steamship Company, a Honduran-based front that owned no ships but operated Radio Swan, a CIA radio station used in the Bay of Pigs, among other operations.
5. Before relocating to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, Michael Paine had worked for the Franklin Institute, a CIA conduit.
6. Michael Paine also was apparently posing as a leftist to infiltrate and catalog, Castro sympathizers, not unlike the work Guy Banister was doing in New Orleans in conjunction with, among others, Lee Harvey Oswald.
7. His step father was Arthur Young, married to Ruth Forbes Young. Arthur Young was a devotee of “The Nine” and became a major figure at Bell Helicopter. Arthur got Michael a job at Bell.
8. Ruth Forbes Young was best friend with Mary Bancroft, Allen Dulles’s subordinate and long-time mistress while he worked for OSS, America’s World War II intelligence service.
9. Ruth Paine’s father was William Avery Hyde, an insurance executive who had worked for the OSS in World War II and later went to work for the Agency for International Development, a frequent CIA cover.
10. Ruth’s father, like George De Mohrenschildt, worked for the International Cooperative Alliance.
11. In the summer of 1963, Ruth traveled cross-country and visited her sister Sylvia Hyde Hoke, who was a CIA psychologist.
12. Sylvia’s husband John Hoke also worked for the Agency for International Development.
13. In the 1980s, Ruth Paine was apparently infiltrating and cataloging anti-“Contra” activists with regard to the attempts at overthrowing the Sandinista forces in Nicaragua.
The Paines–Ruth in particular–played a decisive role in the shaping of the circumstances leading to Lee being framed for the JFK assassination.

Among the operations performed by the Paines:

1. Ruth separated Lee and Marina, bringing a pregnant Marina back to Dallas while Lee was in New Orleans and then facilitating Lee’s stay at a rooming house after he returned to Dallas.
2. Ruth got Lee his job at the Texas School Book Depository, despite the fact that Lee had actually received a better job offer. It was Lee’s employment at the TBSD that was the foundation for framing him for the assassination.
3. Ruth may well have been the person who got the phone call communicating the better-paying job offer to Lee. It does not appear that she told Lee about the offer.

The disinformation used to frame Oswald for the assassination stemmed in considerable measure from what we might call “Ruth Paine’s garage sale.”

Many of Oswald’s effects were stored in Ruth Paine’s garage after his return to Dallas from New Orleans. Ruth Paine’s garage eventually yielded:

1. The ludicrous picture of “Oswald” posing with two Communist magazines and the weapons he supposedly used to kill JFK and Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippitt. The shadows under “Oswald’s” chin and behind his body go in different directions, indicating that Oswald’s head had been superimposed on the body posed for the picture. In addition, “Oswald’s” body tilts in a ludicrous fashion. (See the photo at right.) This photo did much to convince a naive public that Oswald had been the assassin.
2. The cameras found in Ruth Paine’s garage were not consistent with the film used to take the “Leaning Tower of Oswald” photograph.
3. Ruth Paine’s garage sale yielded the “evidence” that Oswald–who supposedly killed a liberal President–had also tried to kill the right-wing General Walker. This included an apparently forged note incriminating Oswald, which had neither Lee’s nor Marina’s fingerprints on it.. This was spun in such a way as to neuter any notion that Oswald was a politically motivated killer. In this program, Jim recapitulates some of the facts that negate the hypothesis that Oswald fired at Walker, including eyewitness accounts of two men firing and driving away (Oswald didn’t drive), the fact that the marksmanship required to hit a seated Walker would have been far less difficult than the matchless firing skill required to have done what Oswald had allegedly done in Dallas and discrepancies in the ballistics and munition evidence in the Walker shooting.
4. A silver bracelet supposedly purchased by Oswald in Mexico City which provides supporting “physical evidence” of Oswald’s alleged presence in the important Mexico City visit.
5. There was a package found in Ruth Paine’s garage, addressed to Oswald and from George Bouhe, one of the White Russians involved with the handling of the Oswalds in the Dallas area. There was an address sticker pasted on the package, and yet the FBI made no effort to determine the address under the sticker. Why? Furthermore, the package contained wrapping paper consistent with the paper the Warren Commission said Oswald used to bring the Mannlicher/Carchano into the Texas School Book Depository. Had Oswald opened the picture and handled the paper, he would have left fingerprints which would have corroborated the official cover-up.
6. In the context of the previous item, it is noteworthy that George Bouhe lived next door to, and shared a swimming pool with, Jack Ruby!
Next, the program pivots to New Orleans DA Jim Garrison and his investigation of the JFK assassination.

One of the calumnies used to discredit Garrison is the allegation that he engaged in his investigation of David Ferrie, Clay Shaw et al in order to further his career–that he was ambitious. And yet, as Jim notes, Garrison TURNED DOWN opportunities to become Lieutenant Governor (of Louisiana), Attorney General, a Senator and also to acquire lucrative banking interests. All of those goals were forsaken so that Garrison could pursue his investigative career, including and especially the JFK assassination.

Another lie that has been used to discredit Garrison is the allegation that he highlighted the CIA’s role in the JFK assassination in order to eclipse the Mafia’s role in it and, in so doing, protect what are said to be his Mob associates.
Destiny Betrayed destroys that allegation as well, chronicling the fact that Garrison vigorously prosecuted organized crime figures in New Orleans and was known to have factored Mob participation in the JFK assassination in his investigation.
Mr. Emory read into the record a passage which not only refutes the Mafia smearing of Jim Garrison, but provides an interesting peek into the account of the trial to come. After noting racketeer influence on judges who had obstructed Jim Garrison’s activities, Jim writes:

. . . . The insinuation about racketeer influences had some underpinning. Two of Garrison’s assistants had drinks with one of the judges, Judge Haggerty, who would preside over the Clay Shaw trial. Haggerty introduced them to Francis Giordano. Giordano was a Carlos Marcello associate. He complained to them that when Dowling took away their illegal gaming machines, he returned them. Garrison did not. “How Come,” Giordano asked? . . . .